13 comments:

The link takes me to a web page for USC Rossier. It says nothing about teacher salaries in the USA or elsewhere. It's just an ad for their program.

What are the odds that it's the exact same page as three to six weeks ago, when Tin Eye scribbled this illegible little note in for that little crack-hit of credibility, not meant to last much beyond the moment of being inhaled by the credulous?

Now, if you point out that the US already has the most people and highest percentage in prison in the world as a way of suggesting that harsh sentencing isn't the answer, you'll still be told never mind, there needs to be even more people behind bars and even more prisons built.

But then, the right always has been quicker to see prisons as the answer more than education.

It is so easy to lie with the statistics about per capita spending. Do his include just salaries, or total spending, and how are the different currency rates and gross national product and whatever included in the calculations? Does it include for-profit, private schools?

Not to deny that US students are doing poorly. Parents' attitudes, our entertainment-obsessed culture (and the wrong-wing culture in particular) is leading to a dumbing-down in education.DW

Furthermore, I expect Tinsley to publish a scathing indictment of Louisana's recent attempt to divert education dollars to religious schools, which have curriculums that should be self-immolating from white-hot embarrassment.

Doonesbury is doing a much better series on the subject of educational finances this week, and it includes statistics that are not in the form of illegibly scribbled footnotes, but are part of the dialogue. You know, like a real cartoonist would do it.

Hmm, well how is he getting his total for spending per student? Are we looking at only public schools for one and for another are we looking at it in terms of salaries, or amount spent on books and resources? Is he remembering to average for areas, where for example some people will get very little due to low property values or the money being spent on things like a new gym, new uniforms etc. instead of say on books or teaching materials?

The point may well be valid but the better question is what the solution is, and for that matter what the SOURCE of the problem is.